The night wind in New York felt like a wet knife slicing through skin. Leo stood frozen at the edge of a rooftop in Hell's Kitchen, his body a dark silhouette against the pale moonlight. Below, the city pulsed like a sick giant—its neon lights, horns, and screams forming a chaotic heartbeat. To him, that pulse was the rhythm of injustice, a symphony of chaos demanding correction. He was thirty-three, but his lean, muscular body belonged to someone younger, a result of brutal discipline in parkour and mixed martial arts. Every muscle was a taut cable, every movement a cold calculation. Yet behind the simple black mask covering half his face, his eyes—gray like steel in the rain—held a darkness deeper than any night. He was there for a reason. Leo peered through the grimy window of an apartment across the street. Rick "The Weasel" Scanlon, a scumbag who sold opioid pills cut with fentanyl to high school kids. Two weeks ago, a sixteen-year-old girl named Chloe—the daughter of a friendly shopkeeper who always kept extra coffee for Leo—was found dead in a school bathroom from an overdose. The police had caught her small-time dealer, but Rick, the brains behind it, was still out there, drinking beer and watching TV as if nothing had happened. Systemic justice? It was a joke that made Leo nauseous. Courts, hearings, appeals—it was a cycle designed to protect people like Rick, who could buy the best lawyers and false testimonies with their money. Leo had seen it too often. His father, an honest factory worker, had been financially and mentally destroyed by a corrupt executive; the system had let that man walk away with minimal consequences. That was when young Leo had vowed never to rely on the system again. With almost silent movements, he slid down from the rooftop, using pipes and brick outcroppings as footholds. Parkour wasn't just about speed; it was a language he used to speak to the city, a silent dialogue about gravity and rebellion. In seconds, he was on Rick's balcony. The TV was audible, a late-night news report. A reporter with a flat voice was talking about the "Vigilante" who had been terrorizing mid-level criminals for the past month. They called him "The Wraith." Leo snorted. They needed labels for everything. He didn't push the door open; it would be too loud. Instead, he used a trigger in his glove—a small magnetic device he'd built himself—to unlock the sliding window. It opened with a soft hiss. The living room was a mess, littered with pizza boxes and beer cans. Rick was snoring on the couch, his bulging belly rising and falling rhythmically. Leo stood over him, watching. This wasn't about blind rage. This was about calculation. This was about sending a message. If you poisoned kids, you'd face consequences no lawyer could buy off. He touched Rick's shoulder. The man coughed, his eyes snapping open wide, filled with confusion that turned to fear when he saw the masked figure standing over him. "W—who the hell are you?!" Rick screamed, reaching for the TV remote like a sword. "Chloe," Leo said, his voice low and raspy, deliberately altered to sound inhuman. "You know that name." "I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING—" Leo's grip cut off the protest. "Don't lie. I've been watching you. I've been listening. I have records of your sales. Your phone conversations." Leo leaned in, his face inches from Rick's pale one. "You're a cancer. And the cancer is being cut out." The fear in Rick's eyes shifted to something else—something uglier. A bitter smile. "You think you're a hero? You think this will change anything? They'll replace me tomorrow! There's demand! I'm just a businessman!" Leo had heard that argument before. It was a mantra every villain he'd ever faced had recited. They always saw themselves as just cogs in a machine. But Leo knew: to fix a broken machine, sometimes you had to break the cogs, one by one. "This isn't for them," Leo whispered. "This is for Chloe. So she can rest easy. And for her father, who'll never sleep again." Then the violence happened. It wasn't a rampage; it was a ritual. A horrific performance. Leo didn't use weapons. Just his hands, elbows, and feet. Each blow was a sentence in a manifesto he was writing in blood. A punch to the ribs—for her last painful breath. A kick to the knee—for her mother fainting at the funeral. Rick screamed, but his apartment was well-insulated, and his cries were drowned out by the sound of sirens passing below. Leo made sure of it. He always did. When Rick lay helpless, gasping, his face battered and bloody, Leo